Eternal Life Bible Eternal Life

Eternal Life

Bible

Eternal life is only achieved through Jesus Christ and it is a gift that God has given us. Heaven is a gift that God gives us not because of our own personal efforts, but it is our gift that he gives us for our faith in Him. "For by grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Jesus Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:8-10). The only way that I can know I will achieve eternal life is through God's grace and through my faith in Him. Matthew 5, verse 48 says, "Be therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect," but this is too high of a standard, which makes it clear that we cannot save ourselves.

To my friend, I would say that eternal life is given from God through Jesus. Eternal life is to have a spiritual life and we can only come to know God through his son. You have to have a permanent and continuous relationship with Him that can only be achieved through faith in Jesus. I would tell my friend that eternal life can't be earned through good deeds, but only through faith, which means that you must admit that you are a sinner, repent for those sins, and believe in Jesus. Ephesians 2:1 says that the opposite to this is to be "dead in trespasses and sins." Eternal life is free and it comes to you when you believe and show your faith in Jesus.

Ephesians 4:2 says "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us," is the beginning for us. If we didn't have God's love, we would have nothing. We don't deserve God's love, in fact, we deserve to be shunned by God because we are sinners, but Ephesians is telling us that God is "rich in mercy" and He has much mercy for us. It is because of this that God is able to love us -- in John 3:16 it says, "For God so loved the world…," yet God loves man first and yet we were not loveable. "Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)" (Ephesians 2:5). This says that even though we were laden with sin and we were set for eternal death and damnation, God brought us back to life and gave us the same gift that He gave his one and only son, Jesus Christ.

Through these verses in Ephesians and other books, we can see that there is only one way to have eternal life and therefore I and my friend have to accept that we are not perfect in God's eyes, but yet He loves us so much anyway and He is able to use his abundant mercy and grace to gives us sinners eternal life. The only thing we have to do is believe and have faith in Jesus Christ. There is no other way: Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the light.

Ephesians 2:7 explains "That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." The ages to come means forever, eternity, perpetuity of time. God will never save us and then turn his back and take it away. This is His promise to us and so there isn't any need to worry that there will be a time when God won't was away our sins.